


Random Acts of Kindness

by Katzedecimal



Category: Bruno and Boots - Fandom, Macdonald Hall - Gordon Korman
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Gen, Slice of Life, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-04-23 20:51:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19158757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: Slices of life around MacDonald Hall, with a theme of kindness.Through several incidents of book canon, possibly spoilers for same.





	1. Lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sirwestaytay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirwestaytay/gifts).



_I will fully obey all of the rules of MacDonald Hall._   
_I will fully obey all of the rules of MacDonald Hall._   
_I will fully obey all of the rules of MacDonald Hall._

The scratching of his pen was rhythmic. Bruno had entered a zone where he was no longer concentrating on the words, just letting his arm move in the motions that scratched out the words. Letting his arm do the work was easier, less painful on his hand, and his handwriting was illegible anyways so it didn’t matter much. 

_I will fully obey all of the rules of MacDonald Hall._

Mr. Wizzle had even given Elmer Drimsdale lines. Elmer. _Drimsdale._ Elmer was the most law-abiding student in the school! … well, actually, he broke curfew about as regularly as Bruno himself did, but for different reasons. Scientific reasons. Star-gazing was the most usual reason but there was also the occasional test of engineering principles conducted out in the woods. Actually, when he thought about it, Elmer broke a lot of the same rules Bruno did and about as often. He just didn’t involve anyone at Scrimmage’s. But giving Elmer lines was just a crime against science!

_I will fully obey all of the rules of MacDonald Hall._

Wilbur’s lines were getting more and more chaotic. Bruno wasn’t sure whether that was from lower blood sugar or higher temper - Mr. Wizzle had confiscated all of Wilbur’s food, including his peanut butter. The boys had been taking steps. Anyone going to any fast food place or grocery stores in any of the towns got a request to bring back little packets or tiny jars of peanut butter. Bruno himself had taken the long walk to Chutney to buy a small jar of extra-crunchy. The stash had to be easy to hide and easy to pass among the doors and windows of the dormitories during Wizzle’s surprise inspections and a peanut butter rescue squad had been established among the neighbouring rooms.

_I will fully obey all of the rules of MacDonald Hall._

Sidney Rampulsky had been excused writing lines for a while. After dislocating nearly all of the joints of his dominant hand, he’d tried to compensate with his non-dominant hand and dislocated that too. Now both of his hands were bound up in splints and he had to do his homework using a laptop and some dodgy speech-to-text software. Some of the resulting typos were so hilarious, even the teachers were laughing, so there was that.

_I will fully obey all of the rules of MacDonald Hall._

He Who Shall Not Be Acknowledged was doing his homework. Bruno had finished his homework an hour ago. He seemed to be getting less of it these days, almost as if his teachers were taking pity on him for the number of lines and demerits Mr. Wizzle kept giving him. Larry Wilson had heard rumours that the teachers weren’t happy with Wizzle either. His stupid software had pretty much put Mr. Fudge out of a job (as if anything could replace Mr. Fudge.) 

Chris Talbot’s first lines were in his usual calligraphic hand, but after about ten or so he’d muttered “Ah, fuckit” and relaxed into a messy scrawl not unlike Bruno’s. Unfortunately Mr. Wizzle had heard him and doubled the amount of lines. Him, Elmer, and Mark Davies had had their heads together ever since and Bruno was just a tiny bit worried about that.

_I will fully obey all of the rules of MacDonald Hall._

He Who Shall Not Be Acknowledged put his pen down and sighed. He got up to stretch and look out of the window. Bruno steadfastly ignored him, even when he stood beside Bruno’s chair and picked up one of the pages of lines. Then he took it back to his desk. He sighed again, then his pen resumed scratching, this time in a rhythm that matched Bruno’s. 

Bruno felt his heart soften a little and glanced over his shoulder. The only person who could fully forge Bruno’s indecipherable handwriting was Boots. Bruno got up, stretched, and went out to get a couple of colas from the dormitory pop machine. He set one on Boot’s desk and lightly touched his shoulder, before returning to his own side of the room.


	2. The Botched Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruno hadn’t said anything.
> 
> All the way back to Dormitory 3, he hadn’t said anything. He just kept staring at Boots with that expression. 
> 
> _This is what happens when I listen to Bruno,_ Boots thought. He hadn’t said anything either. He was too angry for that. 
> 
> *Spoilers for _Lights! Camera! Disaster!_

Bruno hadn’t said anything.

All the way back to Dormitory 3, he hadn’t said anything. He just kept staring at Boots with that expression. 

_This is what happens when I listen to Bruno,_ Boots thought. He hadn’t said anything either. He was too angry for that. 

_”Just swap places with Jordie,” he said, “It’ll be fine,” he said._

It had been fine up until the girls from Scrimmage’s had formed a ninja brute squad to literally kidnap their Hollywood heart-throb Jordie Jones from his bed, bound up in his own bedding, and abscond with him across the highway for a birthday party. But when they saw they’d gotten Boots instead of Jordie, they got violent. Boots was still shedding bits of cake and dripping punch, which was starting to dry to a sticky gummy mess.

And then, Miss Scrimmage had found him. 

To his credit, Bruno had immediately run to get The Fish, heedless of what time it was. As Boots was marched at gunpoint towards the highway, Mr. Sturgeon had come running to his rescue, quite literally. The one high point of the evening was seeing Mr. Sturgeon break that blasted terrifying shotgun into smithereens on the asphalt. Heated words were exchanged, threats were made, and the fishy stare of Mr. Sturgeon was hot rather than cold as he promised them punishment in the morning. Then Bruno took him home.

Bruno hadn’t said anything. Neither had Boots. He wasn’t even angry-angry, just the angry of somebody too exhausted for the energy to be truly angry. 

Room 306 smelled of chips and steak and… lobster? Something seafood-y, anyways. Boots pulled off his disgusting, punch-soaked pyjamas. “’M going for a shower,” he mumbled.

He closed the bathroom door and started the water running. He had just wet his hair when the door opened. A hand reached around and snagged his towel, then closed again. Boots took a deep breath and kept scrubbing his hair. 

This time Bruno knocked first, waiting for Boots to grunt in answer before opening the door, “You, uh, you got a bunch of icing in the back. You want me to get it?”

_I want my towel,_ Boots thought sarcastically. But he sighed and sat on the edge of the tub.

Gentle fingers snaked into his hair and began to massage. They scrubbed gently around his ears and down the nape of his neck, scraping out icing as they went. Boots sighed again. Bruno couldn’t have known about the Scrimmage girls’ plan. He wasn’t responsible for Miss Scrimmage and her shotgun, and he **had** run to Boots’s rescue, knowing full well he’d be punished. He’d planned for Boots to have a lush sleep on a waterbed in Jordie’s lavish trailer. Not this. 

Not sitting naked on the edge of the tub while Bruno scrubbed gummy icing and dried punch out of his hair. Boots closed his eyes with another too-tired-to-be-angry sigh. Bruno finally finished scrubbing and left the bathroom. Boots got up to rinse off. He turned the shower off and the door cracked open again, the hand reaching around to put the towel back. It was warm. Boots wrapped it around himself and felt something in his heart twist. He dried off and went back out into their room. 

Bruno had made up Boots’s bed and turned the covers down. He was pulling his own spare set of pyjamas off the radiators and offered them to Boots. Still with that expression. Boots took the offering and pulled on the warm clothes, feeling another twist in his heart. Bruno was still gazing at him with that expression. It was a mixture of deep worry and concern and apology. He hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. He hadn’t meant for Boots to get hurt. 

“I know you are,” Boots said. Bruno just nodded. Boots climbed into bed and pulled the covers up, “In the morning.” 

Bruno said nothing and turned out the light.


	3. The Way to a Man's Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Apparently that's the route to Wilbur Hackenschleimer's soul, too.

Wilbur knew he had anger issues. He knew it before Christmas break, when they did the men’s socialisation and abuse issues class in Social Studies. When the teacher talked about men expressing their feelings as anger, all eyes had surreptitiously slid to him. He wasn’t the only one; when they talked about emotional blackmail and manipulation, the eyes had gone to Bruno Walton, who stared at his desk and chewed his lip. Several of the boys had gone back to their dorms deep in thought. Wilbur had gone back and eaten peanut butter.

But it came to a head after Die-In-The-Woods. He’d exploded on that idiot Calvin Fihzgart, leading to Bruno trying to talk him down. But after they got home, he found his anger hadn’t subsided. It simmered and boiled, deep inside, causing him to snap at everyone and everything. Until finally his roommate, Larry Wilson, had slammed down his pen and said in exasperation, “What’s gotten into you? Why are you so _angry_ lately?”

Wilbur couldn’t answer him, because it was true - he hadn’t always been like this. Wilbur was a big boy, in height and in bulk, and physically he was hella strong. He once lifted a piano! He knew his appearance was intimidating but he thought of himself as a gentle giant. But he wasn’t a gentle giant and his friends were getting scared of him.

“Listen,” Larry said in a kinder voice, “The Fish has arranged for something called… MBSR or something like that. It’s some kind of meditation class, I guess he found out about it from that new Assistant Headmistress over at Scrimmage’s, but Mr. Fudge vouched for it and found us a teacher. Anyhow, it’s for everyone who went on Die-In-The-Woods. Elmer, Mark, and I are going. Maybe you should come, too.”

“Maybe,” Wilbur agreed reluctantly.

* * * *

_This shit is for the birds,_ Wilbur thought hotly. He sat shifting in agitation, while the other boys listened to the MBSR teacher. Elmer Drimsdale was there. Despite how calm he’d seemed during the trip, afterwards he’d had a meltdown in the dining hall and realized he needed more than science. Mark Davies was there. He and Calvin Fihzgart were also seeing therapists. Boots O’Neal was there because Coach Flynn had praised him for keeping the others ‘mindfully on their tasks’ and he wanted to know more about what that meant. Bruno Walton was there probably because Boots was — those two were joined at the hip, heck they’d been touching almost constantly ever since Die-In-The-Woods. Pete Anderson was there mostly out of curiosity. Larry was there out of moral support and just making sure he was, in fact, as alright as he seemed to be. Calvin was there, convinced that he was going to be an expert meditator, why his mind was already empty. Everybody bit their lips at that. Mr. Fudge and Coach Flynn were there too, which made it harder for Wilbur to just sneak out.

He sat through the lectures and the videos, still fidgeting. Everyone else was listening attentively - even Bruno - and Wilbur just wanted to punch through the wall. He wished he hadn’t agreed to do this, it was stupid, what was yoga and shit going to do 

“Now we’ll do an exercise in eating mindfully,” the teacher said, and went around the circle placing two raisins in front of every person.

Wilbur stared. _Mindful eating? What’s that? What does this have to do with this meditating and yoga bullshit?_ Then he shrugged - whatever, it was food and anything with food was alright by him. 

Wilbur went through the motions of observing the colours and textures of his raisin, smelling its aroma, listening to it, and broke up laughing with the others when Bruno made his raisin squeak “Help me! Help me!” Then he put the raisin into his mouth. _Umami?_ he thought with surprise, _Yeah, that’s umami! Who knew raisins were umami? Yeah, that’s sweet and umami!_

It was a good decision. Because in those moments, with those two raisins, Wilbur realized he hadn’t _really_ been tasting his food at all!

At the end of the class, he asked the teacher for more about mindful eating. The teacher gave him a book and some assignments, and Wilbur went away feeling much more enthusiastic.

* * * *

Wilbur sat in the middle of his dorm room floor with a small bowl of heirloom cherry tomatoes. Orange ones, yellow pear-shaped ones, purpley-brown ones, bright red tiny ones, luminous green ones that looked lit from within. He held the bowl in his hand and was currently sniffing a zebra-striped tomato.

His book talked about eating from just one bowl, quite a different state of being for Wilbur, who was used to piling his plate high with food. The book talked about that too, about possession and ownership of food. He found himself resonating with quite a lot of what the book talked about and he paid attention. 

He bit into the zebra-striped tomato, tasting sharp and green and bringing a rush of saliva to his mouth. The book talked about eating as an emotional experience. He’d heard about ‘emotional eating’ but that didn’t seem to be quite what the book meant. It went beyond liking and not-liking. It encouraged him to keep a food journal, not about the foods he ate, but about what he experienced while eating. 

Right now he was experiencing tomatoes. He bit into another one, bright red, so small it looked more like a berry, and was shocked by the force of the sweet flavour that filled his mouth, completely different from the zebra tomato.

The book talked about choosing a special bowl to eat from. The bowl he had was okay but somehow not quite right. The bowls in the dining hall were communal, completely unsuitable. Wilbur resolved to look for his bowl any time he went out. 

A purple tomato burst into robust, deeply umami tomato flavour with thick, meaty, chewy flesh. It was so umami, his mouth watered again. _Bliss was not something I expected to feel when eating tomatoes yet here we are,_ he thought, and resolved to write that in his journal.

The course teacher wanted them to do “body scan” meditations once every day, focusing on each part of their bodies in turn. _Easy to do, after a bowl of tomatoes,_ Wilbur thought as he lay down for the exercise. _This is the kind of meditation I can get behind._

* * * *

Wilbur thunked into his chair in the dining hall and thumped his plate down onto the table. Bruno looked up from his dinner, “What’s wrong?”

“I found my bowl,” Wilbur sighed, “And I can’t afford it.”

“How much is it?” asked Boots. 

Wilbur told him. “I just don’t have enough left of my allowance,” he explained. Bruno and Boots looked at each other. Bruno reached for his wallet and Boots took out his phone. Wilbur’s phone chimed and he took it out and thumbed it open. It was an email alert. He frowned and opened it. And stared. His phone chimed again and again as more e-transfers arrived - from Boots, Bruno, Larry, Chris Talbot, even Calvin. Wilbur looked up at the faces of his friends, puzzled, “But why?”

Bruno shrugged with a warm smile, “Because you really want the bowl.” Everyone at the table nodded.

* * * *

“Thank you for completing your self-assessments,” the MBSR teacher said, “Well, we’ve completed six weeks and have two weeks to go. What do you think of the practices so far?”

“It’s helping me a lot,” Mark Davies offered, “It’s making it easier to come to grips with what I experienced. I want to continue.”

“Yeah,” Elmer agreed, “I’ve had to confront some truths that I know are logical but deep down it’s not okay. This is helping me to deal with everything that’s coming up.”

Bruno glanced at Boots and admitted, “I’m still getting nightmares but it’s getting easier to come down from them, I guess.”

What? **Bruno** was having nightmares? Bruno was the most happy-go-lucky, never-say-die guy Wilbur had ever met! The thought of him having nightmares because of Die-In-The-Woods just _hurt._

Boots looked at Bruno with a sad smile and said, “Yeah, me too. I want to keep going.”

“Me too,” Wilbur heard himself say. He looked down at his bowl, with its deep indigo, almost purple glaze, the perfect size to hold in his large hands, the perfect depth to hold just the right amount of food for him to eat at a sitting. “And I’m gonna keep doing the mindful eating. My friends bought me this bowl. They didn’t understand why, but they bought it anyways.” He looked at Larry, then at everyone in the room, “Every time I eat from this bowl, I’m reminded that I have the best friends in the whole world.”


End file.
